The chapter on memory management exemplifies this careful approach to Windows 2000 internals. What memory management does is discussed (it maps the virtual memory range of threads into registers on physical devices, and handles overflow from volatile memory onto disk). Then, you learn the more obvious ways of observing and tweaking memory performance (the Performance tab in Task Manager and the Registry). Finally, you get detailed information on how Windows 2000 handles mapping, and the use of dozens of memory-related Win32 API calls. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system kernel and its internal operations; the specific behaviors of various subsystems, including memory management, threading, security, caching, and network communications.